Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[rowsdower]

Good to see that Joe, Mika, and Blaney are all back training, adding that to bevis getting some minutes  should give us decent competition for places going into the run in. Hopefully we don't do injuries on the one in one out system too.

[thisGRAEME]

5 hours ago, rowsdower said:

I liked Frear. Left wingers have always, and will always be my favourite.

I found Frear, by a distance, one of the most frustrating players we've had in recent times. Probably not helped by following Marvellous Marvin, but a following a guy that didn't look like he feared anyone, by a guy who seemed scared of his own shadow did my nut.

Talented but flaky.

[lennyzer0]

4 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

I found Frear, by a distance, one of the most frustrating players we've had in recent times. Probably not helped by following Marvellous Marvin, but a following a guy that didn't look like he feared anyone, by a guy who seemed scared of his own shadow did my nut.

Talented but flaky.

Absolute dug meat at Hearts. If you looked at his figures of 2 goals in 8 games, you'd think he was ok, but IIRC one was a tap in he almost missed and I can't even remember the other. Like Jordan Roberts, maybe just didn't fit at Hearts (as can happen at times, through nobody's fault) but when I saw he was now at Bath City I immediately though, yeah, that's his level.

[Antiochas III]

31 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

I found Frear, by a distance, one of the most frustrating players we've had in recent times. Probably not helped by following Marvellous Marvin, but a following a guy that didn't look like he feared anyone, by a guy who seemed scared of his own shadow did my nut.

Talented but flaky.

Most weeks you could tell what kind of game Frear was gonna have in his first 5 minutes.  If he beat his man at the first attempt, he was gonna do it all game.  If he didn't you'd be lucky to see him try anything at all.  

[Archie McSquackle]

48 minutes ago, lennyzer0 said:

Absolute dug meat at Hearts. If you looked at his figures of 2 goals in 8 games, you'd think he was ok, but IIRC one was a tap in he almost missed and I can't even remember the other. Like Jordan Roberts, maybe just didn't fit at Hearts (as can happen at times, through nobody's fault) but when I saw he was now at Bath City I immediately though, yeah, that's his level.

You managed to make the goal machine that was John Sutton look an absolute haddy though . 

[Doctor Manhattan]

26 minutes ago, Antiochas III said:

Most weeks you could tell what kind of game Frear was gonna have in his first 5 minutes.  If he beat his man at the first attempt, he was gonna do it all game.  If he didn't you'd be lucky to see him try anything at all.  

Most weeks you could tell what kind of game Frear was going to have 5 minutes before kick off, based purely on statistical probability. You know what they say about pessimists...

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

He was a left-footed player, who needed to play on the left, whose one trick was to put crosses in. That's a fairly limited skillset in the modern game.

In the thunderdome season, it seemed like he was going to start as our first choice left-wing back, before getting injured and us switching Tait from the right to the left and Cadden from the middle to the right.

[Londonwell]

I have absolutely no recollection of Frear playing for Hearts. There you go. 

[Yoshi-91]

18 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Bring him home...

I miss that wee guy. As frustrating as he could be he scored some belters for us and seemed to buy into the club and fans. If only he could track back. 

 

This one wee clip has really made me realize that he have had some quality players in the previous 10 or so years.... WTF has happened to us. 

[capt_oats]

I know we all dissected the press conferences post-Grezza and ultimately it doesn't really mean that much what they say in public but nevertheless it's interesting to hear what the general line is.

This is what McGinn has had to say about SK:

Quote

The defender said: "I'm really pleased.

"I'd have been surprised if it was anyone else after those two performances and results.

"I think we are just glad to have a settled manager in now.

"He speaks clearly, he gets to the point. There is no messing about and it is nice to have that.

"There's just a sort of calmness and a clear plan on how we were going to attack games.

"There's a bit of luck as well, but that's just football sometimes. It's mad.

"If you watch us at Raith opposed to last week, it was quite a turnaround."

Link

I mean, no fucking shit Paul.

The fact he's talking about Kettlewell speaking clearly and getting to the point kind of reinforces SK's pitch and how he said he was going to approach the job.

Also from Kettlewell himself:

Quote

the 38-year-old said: “I’d like Fir Park to be a horrible place to come to for opposition teams but where supporters enjoy what they see in front of them. It can be a horrible place to come for a number of reasons. By how you play, pass the ball, your energy and aggression, discipline and structure."

“There’s a number of ways to do it but, yeah, I’d love this to be a place where teams and players come and think ‘I’m not looking forward to that’. It’s been like that before.

"As a player, manager or coach whenever I came here you knew it was going to be a proper game. I would love that to be the case and it has been in the last two games.”

Link

Yes please.

[Londonwell]

6 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I know we all dissected the press conferences post-Grezza and ultimately it doesn't really mean that much what they say in public but nevertheless it's interesting to hear what the general line is.

This is what McGinn has had to say about SK:

I mean, no fucking shit Paul.

The fact he's talking about Kettlewell speaking clearly and getting to the point kind of reinforces SK's pitch and how he said he was going to approach the job.

Also from Kettlewell himself:

Yes please.

Was it Efford that said it was really nice to have a plan in place with Hammell, in a sly wee dig to Grezza? Sure there was similar enthusiastic praise early doors as well? Lastedall of two minutes that time, until we resorted to “working hard everyday to put this right”.

Players talk pish mostly. 

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Londonwell

[well fan for life]

Physical? Aggressive? Tell me more Stuart.

[Kapowzer]

22 minutes ago, Londonwell said:

Was it Efford that said it was really nice to have a plan in place with Hammell, in a sly wee dig to Grezza? Sure there was similar enthusiastic praise early doors as well? Lastedall of two minutes that time, until we resorted to “working hard everyday to put this right”.

Players talk pish mostly. 

 

I can only think Hammy’s plan B was used against Livi at FP with no more to come and he then started talking in Tam Courts style new speak.

[Neil86]

In defence to Hammell, we were very good to watch for about 2 months. Hearts and Dundee UTD at fir park, should have had a combined total of about 10 Motherwell goals, however we managed to draw 0-0 in one and lose 3-0 in the other. 

[Kapowzer]

13 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Physical? Aggressive? Tell me more Stuart.

Issuing a lot of these

[lennyzer0]

2 hours ago, Archie McSquackle said:

You managed to make the goal machine that was John Sutton look an absolute haddy though . 

Undeniably good point. I was so excited to see Sutton play for us, but we he did nowt when he got here.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

45 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

In defence to Hammell, we were very good to watch for about 2 months. Hearts and Dundee UTD at fir park, should have had a combined total of about 10 Motherwell goals, however we managed to draw 0-0 in one and lose 3-0 in the other. 

After watching Grezza's mob shell the ball into the corners, I think we were all quite pleased to see the ball being on the deck for a bit, but in hindsight, you wonder if Hammell might have been a bit better going for the winning by any means approach before to get a decent points tally on board (especially given the winnable run of fixtures to start the season), before trying to easy an philosophy he had in. I know he probably wanted to do something radical to make himself a good candidate for the job, but trying to turn a team who voluntarily played Bevis Mugabi as a right-wing back less than six months ago in to the Spain team of 2008 is a bit of a tall order.

In the Hearts game you mentioned, I think Hearts got three goals because of how openly we played that day.

Soon after that, we didn't have a style of play. Say what you want about Grezza, at least with his launch style the team had an identity, an eye-bleeding awful to watch identity, but an identity all the same. After knocking the ball about for 5 or 6 games, Hammell's team seemed to have an absence of any style and were just going through the motions.

[Archie McSquackle]

1 hour ago, lennyzer0 said:

Undeniably good point. I was so excited to see Sutton play for us, but we he did nowt when he got here.

And then returned to Motherwell and banged in 34 goals in 76 games. There's a bit about his time with Hearts here.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/motherwell-striker-john-sutton-scored-2340700

[capt_oats]

To pick up on SK's chat about appointing an assistant yesterday:

Quote

"We'll need to structure that the way that I would like. I've had a couple of conversations. It's so important that I get the right person in. It's so important that I get somebody in that I believe can add value to what I do and challenges me. Because I believe in that. Somebody needs to challenge you and you might fall out from time to time but also somebody that the players respect and is good on the training pitch and good in those game situations as well but how they see the game and it would have to be an obvious link between myself and how they see the game.

So there's been a couple of conversations. Nothing to confirm on that front just now. David Clarkson, Neil Alexander, Liam Jukes the guys behind the scenes just now have been absolutely brilliant but I would be looking to bring somebody in as quick as I possibly can."

Genuinely interested to see who ends up getting the gig.

[capt_oats]

6 hours ago, Yoshi-91 said:

I miss that wee guy. As frustrating as he could be he scored some belters for us and seemed to buy into the club and fans. If only he could track back. 

This one wee clip has really made me realize that he have had some quality players in the previous 10 or so years.... WTF has happened to us. 

If you want the pretty dry answer then it's more than likely the case that Brexit has put a premium on the players who were in the market we were shopping so the wages have inflated accordingly.

It means your Ainsworth, Johnston, Moult etc that we were able to pick up for a nominal fee on the promise of giving them a platform 7 or 8 years ago are getting paid multiples of our wage structure in League 1, League 2 and the Conference in England. Which is probably why we've started looking at recruiting from other markets.

I mean, that squad included Samson in goals, Zak Jules, Lee Lucas, Craig Clay, Jacob Blyth amongst others so I'd maybe hold off on romanticising our "quality" too much.

As it stands we've a centre forward who's on course to score more goals in a season for us than Moult ever did.

Also, none of that argues against @thisGRAEME's point on the Patreon pod asking why Livi are able to sign folk like Omeonga (Bartley probably had a word with him but still...).